NASA astronauts conduct spacewalk postponed due to debris risk - CNN

NASA postponed a spacewalk originally scheduled for Tuesday after receiving a space debris warning for the International Space Station.

Just hours before the astronauts were due to venture out of the ISS, the agency said on its Twitter account that "due to the lack of opportunity to properly assess the risk," it had decided to delay the November 30 spacewalk until more information was available.

It was unclear whether the warning was related to the space debris created by a Russian anti-satellite test two weeks ago that forced crew members on the International Space Station to scramble into their spacecraft for safety.

"After receiving additional information about a late notification debris event on Monday, NASA determined the orbit of the debris does not pose a risk to a scheduled spacewalk by Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron or to International Space Station operations," the agency posted on its website.

Mission managers discovered the issue in September, said Vincent LaCourt, NASA spacewalk flight director.

"That timing allowed us to have Tom and Kayla go into our neutral buoyancy laboratory, or big pool where we practice spacewalks, and practice our exact spacewalk," LaCourt said.

Overall, the loss of this antenna has a low impact on space station operations.

Their actions are reckless and dangerous, threatening as well the Chinese space station."

While the debris field was very concentrated at first, it has dispersed over time, said Dana Weigel, NASA deputy manager of the International Space Station Program, on Monday.

Russia's anti-satellite missile test just made it worse, though Weigel said that some previous spacewalks have come with a higher risk than this one.

"Unfortunately, when you have a debris event like this and you get a lot of really small pieces scattered around, it just becomes part of the average environment," Weigel said.